Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Glenn Reynolds revisits a subject he has been mentioning for some time (also see here): making the right to bear arms an international human right:

An article forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review takes a much deeper look (pdf) at that very question, with particular emphasis on Darfur, and notes that the victims of the genocide are effectively disarmed by law and international embargo while the perpetrating janjaweed militias are armed and financed (as is common in genocides) by the Sudanese government. For the people of Darfur, relying on the government to protect them is absurd, as the government is behind their murder. Relying on the international community, on the other hand, is absurd because the international community is - at the most charitable - absurd. In fact, as is also the case with most genocides, much of the international community is complicit, at least to the extent of turning a blind eye to conduct that would otherwise imperil important government contracts, or oil ventures.Given that this sort of behaviour is par for the course when genocides occur, who would dare to say that the inhabitants of Darfur do not have a right to arm themselves and resist their killers with force?

Do read the whole thing. There seems to have been some significant progress in furthering the intellectual underpinnings of this idea, as is evidenced by the academic writings that Glenn mentions. It will be interesting to see how this debate develops.

Favourite Quotes

"To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French." Mark Twain: Concerning The Jews, Harper's Magazine, March 1898

"This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill: Pencilled in the margin of a minute issued by a civil servant who was objecting to the ending of a sentence with a preposition and the use of a dangling participle in official documents.

"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!" Margaret Thatcher: Conservative Party conference speech, Brighton, 10 October 1980

"Who was that lad they used to try to make me read at Oxford? Ship- Shop- Schopenhauer. That’s the name. A grouch of the most pronounced description." P. G. Wodehouse: Carry On, Jeeves – Clustering Round Young Bingo

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." George Burns

"Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." Winston Churchill: Harrow School speech, 29 October 1941

"The profits of 'protection' go altogether to a few score select persons—who, by favors of Congress, State legislatures, the banks, and other special advantages, are forming a vulgar aristocracy, full as bad as anything in the British or European castes, of blood, or the dynasties there of the past." Walt Whitman: Prose Works, III. Notes Left Over - 11. Who Gets the Plunder?

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill: House of Commons speech on August 20, 1940. (at the peak of the Battle of Britain, referring to the RAF airmen)

"And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse – and I wish him well." Barbara Bush: Wellesley College commencement address, 1 June 1990

"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!" Winston Churchill: House of Commons speech, June 4 1940 (referring to Dunkirk)

"Earnestly hope we shall not have another war with meat-coupons and no sugar and people being killed – ridiculous and unnecessary. Wonder whether Mussolini's mother spanked him too much or too little - you never know, these psychological days." Dorothy Sayers: Busman'sHoneymoon - Diaries of the Dowager Duchess of Denver

"The gunfire around us makes it hard to hear. But the human voice is different from other sounds. It can be heard over noises that bury everything else. Even when it's not shouting. Even when it's just a whisper. Even the lowest whisper can be heard over armies – when it's telling the truth." Sydney Pollack et al.: The Interpreter [2005] (Dedication from the memoirs of Edmond Zuwanie)

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last." Winston Churchill